


in the city of God

by foxlives



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-22
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-21 00:04:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/893472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxlives/pseuds/foxlives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How much do you know about the Devil, Will Graham?</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the city of God

They walk in when he has a linoleum knife hooked in your belly, one hand on the handle and the other on the side of your neck. You're choking, gasping. Blood leaks from the side of your mouth and cascades from the knife stuck in your stomach, spattering to the floor.

They yell _freeze_ , and Hannibal smiles. He looks at you, and smiles, and he kisses your forehead. He pulls the knife out. He lets you go.

*

You grew up in Louisiana, in a little house close enough to the water that there was always mold on the walls of the basement, dampness and saline in the air. You grew up in Louisiana but you left when you were seven, lost the accent by the time you started middle school. 

You spent most of your teenage years on the coasts, brief stretches in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, as you drive from the bayou to Tijuana. You spent most of your teenage years in your dad's truck, pale yellow, with scratched plates and rust edging around the wheel wells.

You spent most of your teenage years on the coasts and graduated high school only a year late, a year and a few months. You went to church every Sunday, sometimes a different church every week for half a year or more. There was always a Bible in the glovebox, with the flashlight and the insurance and a pack of Marlboros. Your dad had you read it to him, sometimes. He had your mom's favorite parts bracketed in pencil, deep graphite marks in the thin browning paper.

The point of this story is that you thought you knew a lot about--

*

Two weeks after you're let out of the hospital, you go to see Hannibal in the Baltimore City Jail.

They let you in and you walk up to Hannibal's cell. You say, "Hello, Doctor Lecter." You'd be the first to admit you have a pretty warped sense of humor.

"Will," he says, nodding to you. He stands up, walks to the bars. There are maybe two feet and some steel in between you and him. You haven't seen him since he gutted you with a linoleum knife on the thick carpeting of his office.

"You seem to be recovering nicely," he says. Is he smiling?

You don't know how to answer that, so you don't. Instead you say, "You seem to be adjusting to imprisonment nicely." It's not what you wanted to tell him, not quite the right rhythm for the joke you wanted to make. You ball your fists.

*

He asks, "How does it feel?" and he looks at the bars. He looks into your eyes. You let him. He's earned this.

"Freeing," you tell him. You keep your face quiet, impassive. It's not that you don't have anything to lose; it's that you don't care anymore about the things that you do.

His face starts to decay right in front of you, and it takes several hollow, terrifying seconds for you to realize that he's smiling. 

Which side of the bars are you on? He keeps smiling. He says, "I'm glad to here that," and he steps closer to you.

*

It's not what you wanted to tell him, not quite the right rhythm for the joke you wanted to make. You're angry, you think. "How do _you_ feel, Doctor Lecter?" you say. "Freed?"

"I was free from the beginning," he tells you. "This is an inconvenience, to insure a life for myself after death."

You're angry, you realize. You wrap your fingers carefully around one of the bars of Hannibal's cell. "Can't have people forgetting you like this."

"People will remember me however I wish." He looks considering. "How will you remember me, Will?"

"Like this," you say to the scrubbed concrete floor, but it's a lie. You rest your forehead on the cold iron bar of his cell. "Caged, like an animal, like a rat I've trapped at last."

He looks at you, looks at you like-- "Be careful what you are accusing," he says. He looks at you fondly. "Remember, we are the same."

You close your eyes. You pin up the corners of your mouth into a smile. "How sure are you about that?" you ask.

*

"I don't owe you anything," you say. Why are you saying this? Your voice comes out hoarse, whispering.

"Of course you do," he says. "You were lost, trapped in your own head. I freed you. I created you. And here you are."

Which side of the bars are you on?

"I didn't kill anyone," you say. You edit: "When I killed Abigail's father I barely knew you. You aren't responsible for what I did."

"I am responsible for all of you," Hannibal says. "You've been inside my mind, and I inside yours. You have given pieces of yourself to me, and I have returned the favor. We are part of each other now." He looks at you, kindly.

Do you feel guilty, Will Graham?

*

Later on, they will ask you if you believe Hannibal Lecter is responsible for the crimes he is being charged with. 

You look at the emergency exit sign, glowing cherry red at the back of the courtroom. You didn't talk, you didn't give him up; the FBI found Hannibal's basement all on their own.

"We've heard multiple witnesses testify that Hannibal Lecter was your friend," the prosecutor tells you. "You were his patient. He visited you when you were imprisoned for the crimes ultimately traced back to him, and you did the same when he was right here in the Baltimore City Jail."

You think you can feel Hannibal's eyes on you. You wipe your glasses on the edge of your jacket. 

"Now, people are calling him inhuman. Newspapers are calling him a monster. The internet is calling him the Devil himself." The prosecutor looks at you, earnest eyes, perfect suit. "They're calling your friend the Devil, Mr. Graham." The prosecutor looks at you. "What do you believe?"

You put your glasses back on. The whole room is still.

*

How much do you know about--

*

"Hannibal Lecter isn't the Devil," you say carefully. "Hannibal Lecter is a man just like you're a man, Mister Prosecutor, he is a person like everyone in this room is a person." You're looking at the floor next to the prosecutor's shoes, and you know it looks like you're lying. 

The room is quiet, still like a Louisiana summer. "Hannibal Lecter killed people and ate them," the prosecutor says. "He has admitted to feeding tens of people--including you, I might add--human flesh." He looks at you, like he knows something you don't. "You don't think that makes him less of a person?"

You look up. You look at the emergency exit sign, glowing bloody at the back of the courtroom. "Doing terrible things doesn't make you less of a person," you say, "it makes you a terrible person." You stare at him, the careful part in his hair. The corner of your mouth pulls tight. No one says anything.

"Is that what you believe, Mr. Graham?" the prosecutor asks.

"Yes, it is," you say quietly.

*

"How sure are you that you didn't kill Abigail?" Hannibal asks, when you're on the wrong side of the bars and you know, you understand now. You understand.

"How sure are you that she's dead?" you reply.

Hannibal's jaw tics, and you smile; mask-like.

"Doubt," you say, your mouth still strung up in a smile. "I never doubted Garret Jacob Hobbs was dead. I watched my mother die, I never thought she'd come back." You curl your hand harshly around one of the bars of your cell, your palm slipping against the cold steel. "No part of me remembers killing Abigail. My head's cracked open far enough by now, I think I'd know." You clench your fist until the bones of your hand ache. "Doctor Lecter."

He smiles, mask-like. "I see."

You lean forward. "Do you?"

*

The light in Hannibal's office is hard-edged, and the glass in your hand is slick. This is earlier on, before you were ever behind bars, before Hannibal gutted you on the very carpeting under your feet. You're slumped comfortably in your chair; Hannibal is watching you the way he always watches you, warm and curious. You tell him about how the walls keep melting. You tell him about how you keep hearing music when there's nothing there. You tell him about the stag.

"Perhaps your mind is creating visions," he suggests, "to manifest your everyday fears." His eyes are kind.

You scoff. You rub a hand over you jaw. "Uh. Like what?"

"Well," Hannibal says, contemplative, "what are you scared of?"

You actually laugh this time, rusty and surprising, even to you. "Well, that's my secret, Doctor Lecter," you tell him. You look him in the eye. "I'm always scared."

*

You go home to your dogs, to your little house, to your mattress on the floor. To your fridge, empty except for a jar of mustard, a can of tuna, a clamshell of leftovers. You think you should feel worse about that.

You close your eyes, close the fridge. When you're being particularly stubborn, you pretend you just miss the food. When you're being particularly stubborn, you pretend you'd hated the food.

You close your eyes, close the fridge. One of your dogs noses against the palm of your hand, leathery and cool, and you smooth your hand over his head. You lean your forehead against the textured door of the refrigerator and you remember saying, _hannibal lecter isn't the devil._

_hannibal lecter is a man, just like you're a man._

*

The point of this story is that you thought you knew a lot about the Devil. 

*

What do you believe, Will Graham?

**Author's Note:**

> title from hildegard of bingen's 'o euchari,' [which was played in 1x09](http://24.media.tumblr.com/d090db5723e59d51bfa7f754d4af76e8/tumblr_mnb8ooVcVC1ro8pu4o1_500.jpg).


End file.
